


to love, to do, to hope for

by holdenscoffee (spacebarista)



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, F/M, Guilt, Hope vs. Despair, Hopeful Ending, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 05:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14994107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebarista/pseuds/holdenscoffee
Summary: Naomi's home but Jim isn't. She finds some purpose—and hope—in the things he's left behind.





	to love, to do, to hope for

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea like TWO DAYS AGO and banged it out today because I’m sure the episode won’t cover it and I wanna let my fic be at LEAST a half hour out of date so here it is! Basically I messaged my friend and asked her what she would think of Naomi going into Holden’s cabin and finding that he left the XO badge.
> 
> ENJOY! Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you can!
> 
> Title comes from:  
> “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”  
> ― Tom Bodett

Naomi hesitates outside the cabin door she once called her own. His. Theirs. She knows he isn’t in there. She’d found his goodbye message for the guys after securing them in the sick bay, while she was working to fix the comms.

 

It had been the first time she’d been able to look at his face for more than a painful, fleeting moment since he’d watched her walk away on Tycho. She’d looked back, given him a small smile that he returned before she’d let herself disappear into the crowd. His face had been all over the feeds since he brought Avasarala and Mao to Luna. But she couldn’t look at him. It had hurt too much. She’d been moving on, and shutting the pain away in a locked box, every thought of him and her old crew, had been the first step. It always is with her. She’d been afraid to even crack it open. Afraid to face how much she’d known she would miss them.

 

Watching him say goodbye to Amos and Alex, the only support he’d had through everything she’d been gone for… it blew the box wide open again. Amos and Alex are here. They’re alive and recovering. But it’s _his_ absence that keeps her from finding any comfort in being home. The thing that’s missing. She _misses_ him. She hadn’t let herself do so in months. Now _months_ worth of missing him is hitting her at once. This is the next best thing. She takes a breath. Lets it out. And opens the door.

 

His cabin is nearly immaculate. Bed made in military crispness, strapped down for null-g. The only sign anyone lives there is the bulb of what must have been coffee that’s planted on his desk. She smiles despite herself. He’s always kept a clean cabin—when they hadn’t been throwing clothes around—and the sight of it, with a single sign of his insatiable thirst for coffee comforts her even as his absence weighs on her. She breathes and his familiar scent—and naturally, the scent of coffee—assures her. She’s home. Almost.

 

She steps in, letting the door close behind her. Shutting her in her own world the way she and he always used to. Together. He’d looked so tired in his message. Exhaustion he carries like he’s trying to hide it, that he’s probably been burying for months. She’s heard about the _Roci’s_ legal troubles from more than just the news feeds. He’d looked sad, too. Regretful. It’s understandable, given what he’d gone off to do, but…

 

Naomi stands at the edge of his bed. A bunk she’d called _theirs_. She remembers the loneliness of her old bunk, after she’d told him what she’d done with the sample. Getting used to sleeping alone again. Adjusting to silences. To cold. And then she spent her last nights on the _Roci_ with him, taking all of the things she’d missed and would miss while she could. On the _Behemoth_ , she worked herself to near exhaustion, enough to sleep through the night without even thinking about him most nights.

 

Is that what he’d done? Spending as much time with the guys as he could in the day shift, finding things to do in the night shift that would keep him from bed or keep him asleep? Is that why he’d looked so tired?

 

She looks around, picturing him pacing, rummaging through his locker, shaving and washing his face in the head. Things she’d watched him do countless times from this very spot, lounging and teasing him or helping him talk through things. Or listening in on calls to his mother, Elise. Her gaze falls on the desk, where he’d go to work or make calls if she were still sleeping to avoid waking her. Something near the ceiling catches the light. Something she’d missed when she walked in. Naomi heels the controls on her boots and gently pushes herself up, catching the object in her hand. Another gentle push with her hand against the ceiling and she’s floating back down.

 

As soon as her boots click back on, anchoring her to the floor, she opens her hand to see what she’s found. Her heart stops when the realization hits her. The XO badge Captain McDonnell had saddled him with so long ago, back on the _Cant_. The badge she’d noticed him fiddling with when something weighs too heavily on his mind. When guilt is on his shoulders. When he feels _responsible_. She cups it in one hand, reaches out and brushes her fingertips against the cool metal with the other.

 

He’d _left_ it. He’s carried it with him all this time, always in his pocket, always nearby at hand… and he’d _left it_. Her breath catches. _Why?_ Had he left it for Alex or Amos as an ersatz _Rocinante_ captain’s badge? A sign that he plans to return despite his message? Something for the Martians if they’d caught the _Roci_? Or… had he really thought he wasn’t coming back? Had he… left it as one of his only personal effects? To send to his mother? To send to _her_?

 

“Jim…” Naomi’s hand flies to cover her mouth, to stifle a sob. She’d given up everything to get back here. To them. To _him_. It had taken her days, fighting with Martians, nearly ending up like the slingshotter that had opened the gate. And he was long gone. May never come back. _I never even got to say—_

 

She takes a few long, deep breaths. Calms her heart. Her racing thoughts. Alex, in his pained daze, had smiled at her when he realized it was her. Muttered something about how “he _knew_ you’d come back”. Alex couldn't have meant himself. He. _Jim_. Even when she thought she wouldn’t come back to the _Roci_ , had no foreseeable plans to ever see them again outside of the feeds or in passing in some station… he held out hope she’d come back. Throughout her radio silence. Everything that happened to the _Roci_ …

 

She’s here. She’s finally home. And he’s not. Even in null-g, the weight of that thought threatens to press her to the floor. All she has is this badge. This totem of responsibility for them. For his crew. For _her_ crew. She closes her hand tight around the badge, edges digging into her palm.

 

“I came back, Jim. So you have to come back, too.”

 

He can’t hear her. Wherever he is. But if he could hold out hope for _her_ as long as he had… she can easily do the same for him.

 

Until he cycles back through that airlock, she has a crew to take care of.

 

 


End file.
